MR. DUN: Today is November 7th, 2001.
The time is 1600 hours. My name is Richard
Dun of the New York City Fire Department.
I'm conducting an interview with --THE WITNESS: Deputy Chief Thomas
Galvin, division 3.
Q. Sir, at this time I'd like you to give a brief description of the events of September 11th, 2001.
A. When the first plane hit, I was in my office, watching it on TV and basically stayed in the quarters because my quarters were quarters 421. Basically now I'm the acting Citywide Tour Commander after the fifth alarm was in.
And then when the second plane hit, that's when I knew no matter what, I was going anyway. So I left quarters with Carl Asaro, who was the division firefighter, and battalion Chief Dennis Devlin, who was the special events coordinator here. He wanted to come down to give Carl a hand if Carl needed a hand with the command board.
As we were leaving quarters, that's when the dispatcher informed me there was a fifth alarm
for the south tower and I was the incident commander for the south tower.
We responded down the Henry Hudson Parkway and we got along dow:n to West Street, and we parked the car on Vesey and West. We parked on the south side of West Street on the island between -- that separated West Street there. There's an island that separates it.
So we're parked just south of West Street on the left-hand side of the southbound lanes. What vehicles were parked in front of me --we parked right there. I got out of the car, told Chief Devlin and Fireman Asaro to get the command board together and I'll meet you in the south tower.
After I talked to Chief Ganci -- Chief Ganci was at -- I could see him down the block at the command -- I saw him down in the distance. I went over to them because I wanted to find out what channels we were going to use in the south tower and to go over communications with then. That was the last time I saw those two guys.
Q. What channel were you working on or did you work on?
A. In the south tower we were going to work 5 -- channel 5 was going to be the command channel. It's the same command channel as the north tower, but we were going to go to secondary tactical 3 for the south tower.
Later on I know Ladder 5 was on the northbound side and Rescue i was right in front of them. Any other rigs, you know, I wasn't paying attention to the rigs. I was really looking up because there was just stuff falling out of the sky, debris falling down.
I continued down West Street to go to --
because the command board was actually in West
Street in the street, and I was going over to the
Field Coin officer, who I think was Lieutenant
Regan.
I was asking him what channels we were going to use. He wasn't too sure. Chief Ganci had just walked up. I brought it up to him, told him why I was there. We were going back and forth for a short time to square away the channels. That's where we settled on 3 and 5.
The next thing I remember, Chief Cassano comes up and said let's get the board out of the
street. So I had to stop and carry the board with Lieutenant Regan, and we put it up on the sidewalk in front of the financial building there with the garage.
Q. With the underground parking?
A. Where that exact location is, I couldn't tell you anymore.
Q. It's the underground parking.
Was there a lot c)f debris falling at the time?
A. No, there was debris by the building across the street. You could see things coming down. It was parts of the building, maybe parts of the plane. And there was really no bodies on that side of West Street.
But there was debris coming down. My interaction with Regan and Chief Ganci probably lasted around three to five minutes where we were going back and forth on the channels.
Chief Cassano comes along. I probably spent about three to five minutes because as I was walking away from the Field Coin officer, I said:
~]Do you know what companies I'm using in this
~m11i lr]ina?" He said: "I didn'r know you h~A
GALVIN 5
fifth alarm." Then I had to sit down and I had to write out the whole assignment for him so he was aware of who was being assigned to the south tower.
So after that period of time, I told him okay, I'm going to go into the south tower, and they had already told me that Chief Barbara was already in there and I think they said Chief Burns -- Burns I'm not too sure. They told me that Chief Barbara was already the incident commander in the south tower.
I had to go south a little bit to swing around to get on the other side of the island. The safest way to get into the towers was to go through the -- I keep calling it the Vista, but it's the Marriott now.
When I got into the Marriott, we had about ten companies in there. And I remember hearing a report about people being trapped in the Marriott or there was a problem with the Marriott.
So when I got in there, I grabbed the fire safety director and I said: "Listen, do you have everybody out of this building?" He said no. So I got bogged down in there, and I assigned 23 engine. It was given -- they normally designate a
command post company. They run the elevators.
So I had David there and I said listen, I need you to run the elevators, find bank elevators we can use. You will run the companies up and down. I assigned Ladder 13 -- now, what floors I gave them, I can't recall.
It was Ladder 13 that was in there, 2 Truck, 54 Engine, 65 Engine. Those are the only companies I can really recall. Because I know the officers, so I remembered speaking to them. It was a 22-story building.
I gave each unit like three or four floors, go up, search, get the floors evacuated. remember coming in -- you had to constantly tell people go to channel 3. I considered that part of the south tower operation. I wanted to make sure they were all on the right channel and not interfering with the north tower.
That probably took eight to ten minutes to get that all straightened out in the lobby and get that going. I'm getting bogged down now in this hotel. I really didn't think that much about it because I knew I already had Chief Barbara in front of me in the other one.
Q. At this point the buildings were still standing?
A. Yeah, the buildings were still standing. Yeah, the buildings were intact.
So then Chief Cassano came into the building, because he said to me, where's your aide? I said they're in there. I told them I would meet them in the south tower but I wanted to get the units to clear out the hotel, the units that we had here.
Let me start moving to the south tower. And now hindsight's twenty-twenty when you see the layouts of the buildings. I wasn't aware the Marriott directly interconnects -- even this picture doesn't give it to you. It directly interconnects into the north tower.
I remember saying to somebody how do I get into the tower, not realizing that this interconnected with both. And the guy actually sends rae to the north tower. And I remember going through the atrium and hugging the wall, because when you come out -- you had to go north in the lobby for about 100 feet and make a dog leg to get into this area. There was stuff falling down. I
remember hugging a wall.
When I got in there and I'm looking for the units and I'm saying where is everybody? So I grabbed somebody and said where's the fire command station, where's the chiefs? Oh, they already went outside. Why would they go outside already? What I didn't know is they had already made the decision to take the command post from the north tower out into the street.
Now I'm making my way back into the thing. I don't think at that time I realized I was in the north tower. I just said something's wrong here. It just doesn't seem right. I remember coming back and there was more debris that's falling down into the atrium. I'm calling it an atrium, but it's just an open area.
Q. Concourse?
A. An open area, the concourse.
I ran now into a couple more units. I knew they were assigned to me for the south tower. I said make your way to the south tower and just start getting -- I said I'm trying to find my way to the south tower too.
I remember running into Tommy Jensen,
9
who was a Chief in the 8th battalion -- I'm sorry, Tommy Deangelis, DEANGEL-I-S. I said listen, find your way to the south tower. Chief Barbara was in there. Just take the upper floors as best we can. Just figure out what floors you have to take, and I'll get units to go into it.
Because what was happening was the
safest way to come in from the West Street side or come from the south end, everybody seemed to be coming in through the Marriott, and there were a lot of companies in there.
I said no, we have to move to the south tower. Number 22 Truck had just gone by me. That was with Jerry Riley. The next Chiefs I remember talking to, Freddie Scheffold from the 12th Battalion and Chief Joe Narchbanks. Because I remember saying why are they both here, quick in my mind. I know Scheffold worked the night before, so I figure he buffed it. And I told him I was working the south tower and I just wanted to cet these units moving.
I would say from that time maybe a
minute later, two minutes later, is when the hotel lust started shaking. Everything came down. I rar.
south down the lobby, and that's when I got caught in debris in the lobby there. There was just dust, debris coming downall over. I got knocked to the floor with a lot of people.
You hear somebody say okay, the rumbling stopped, and you hear somebody say the rumbling stopped, we're all right, we're all right, everybody's okay. Let's just find our way out of here. You really could hardly see anything.
I remember we came up to a metal roll down gate. I said let's get this up. I need help. There was like four of us who pulled the gate up. And there were like eight civilians on the other side, and they were looking at us the same way we were: What are you doing on this side of the gate? Somebody told me later that was the gate that separated the lobby from the restaurant.
I said relax, keep looking, everybody keep looking. Somebody said we have a way out over here. I got over -- what direction -- where I think we're moving now is continuing moving south in the lobby towards Liberty.
And I remember seeing clear daylight where people were sort of going up a little incline
and getting out that way, and somebody said we can get out over here. And I went in that direction. There was another way we went out these doors, down some steps.
And I was going out, and there was a fireman there. He had a life-saving rope and a search rope. I said give me the search rope. And I hooked the search rope up to a pole where we were, and I ran the search rope back into the lobby. Come this way, come this way and follow the rope.
I got about another 50 feet back in the lobby, about 50 feet, and T ran into two guys from 58 Engine. I said let's get out of here. They said no, we've got our officer -- there's a guy Bob Nagel, who's a lieutenant from 58 Engine, he was caught in debris. He said he wasn't pinned.
We were talking to him like we were having a conversation just like this. I said Bob, we'll get you out of here, Bob. I said is there any way you can go back? He said no, I can't go backwards.
I remember going to the right. There
~ P]~\T2,rnr shafts, and we lust ccmlcln ' r ript
around them. It just was me and the two firemen. I said listen, I'll tie the search rope here. I'll get you help back in.
I worked my way back outside, and ran I into Ray Brown and the guy from 113 Truck. I ran into them about 60 feet outside the building. I said Ray, we've got this guy, he's alive. We've just got to get tools to clear this area out. Grab whatever air bags off any of the rigs around here.
I said go, you'11 see 65's pumper, you'll go up a few steps, you will see a search rope, just follow the search rope. I figure I've got him being taken care of. Unfortunately it never happened because -- I'm getting ahead of myself now here a little bit.
So I kept walking outside, looking to see if there was anybody else outside. I saw all these ambulances turned over. Half of them are on fire.
The next guy I remember running into is Chief Carruthers. I think he just came on the scene. I told him whoever could get out of the hotel got out of the hotel. I said but Nagel and I have guys working. We couldn't even find our way
back to their location. There was just so much debris and smoke and dust in the air. We couldn't even see 65 inches, approximately. We must have swung out a different way or we just couldn't backtrack.
So he left. Carruthers left at this point to go back to the command post where it was set up originally. And I started making my way back to the Marriott just to see if I could find a way back in. And that's when the other tower came down, and I got caught in the street with all that dirt and debris.
That's when I thought that these guys didn't get out. Forget what they brought in. What I found out later on was they all got knocked down in the debris but they all got out. Ray Brown got taken to a hospital in New Jersey. Two other guys got taken to hospitals elsewhere. But the only guy that really -- aside from Asaro, was Nagel, and they still haven't found him.
I remember now getting caught in the dirt -- more the dirt field, all the crap that was falling down from the building. After that settled down, I remember now the next guy I ran into was
Artie Lakiotes, one of the safety Chiefs. It was just me, him and a few other guys showing up.
I remember guys -- Jimmy Marketti, he was battalion chief and captain of 176 at the time. He was in civilian clothes. And I said what are you doing here, Jimmy? It popped out, because guys were just showing out through the clouds.
So I figured, Artie, what are we going to do here? We have nobody to work with. The next thing you know, Nick Santangelo, Chief of training, he showed up with about 25 guys. Now we're trying to get a water supply. I told Artie Lakiotes:
Artie, you have a supply here because I've got to get back to the command post. We've got to organize this thing better.
From there I made my way down to Vesey and West, and that's when I ran into Chief Carruthers, who has now taken control of everything. He was now with Chief Fellini and Butler and Chiefs Callan and Turi sitting on the island, and they were just like covered in debris. You could see that they were mentally out of it.
I was probably mentally out of it
because Carruthers gave me a few things to do and
find out, things that were going on with the Special Operations Command, the people at the FEMA system, tools and equipment. He knew that I knew what he was talking about. So he put me in charge of getting that to the scene and getting people to get that equipment. I got on the department radio, and hazmat operations said they were going to take care of that.
The next thing Chief Carruthers said
listen, we have no communications with Police
Plaza, so he sent me to be the liaison between the
Fire Department and the Police Department at One
Police Plaza.
I left the scene. I was there for about four or five hours, and I was back at the scene and basically just helping them -- when I got there, that's when they pulled everybody back completely and were doing a roll call.
So I gave a hand to Chief Visconti and Chief Fellini with that. That was like at -- I think that's just south -- it's like Vesey and Wesr, just west of West Street was where they were forming it. They were forming up in there.
And then I just gave them a hand for the
next couple hours, just getting the interchange, getting the companies out of the way and getting the equipment out of the way so we could get the heavy cranes back in.
Basically I made my way back here around midnight and basically spent the next two days here just getting the division back in shape, because the amount of people and equipment that we lost. really didn't go back down there until -- it happened on Tuesday; right?
Q. Yeah.
A. I was back down there Wednesday night because I had to deliver some drawings. And I operated down there Wednesday night into Thursday morning, down at Liberty and West, in front of --that would be in front of where the Marriott Hotel is, clearing out that area with a bunch of units.
MR. DUN: This concludes the interview at 1616 hours. Thank you, sir.
GALVIN i
GALVIN 2
GALVIN 3
GALVIN 4
GALVIN 6
GALVIN 7
GALVIN 8
GALVIN
GALVIN 10
CALVIN
GALVIN 12
GALVIN 13
GALVIN 14
GALVIN 15
GALVIN 16